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Miss Beam led me to one of the bandaged girls. “Here’s a gentleman come to talk to you,” said Miss Beam, and left us.
“Don’t you ever peep?” I asked the girl. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “That would be cheating! But I had no idea it was so awful to be blind. You can’t see a thing. You feel you are going to be hit by something every moment. It’s such a relief just to sit down.”
“Don’t you ever peep?” I asked the girl. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “That would be cheating! But I had no idea it was so awful to be blind. You can’t see a thing. You feel you are going to be hit by something every moment. It’s such a relief just to sit down.”
“Are your helpers kind to you?” I asked.
Explanation:
Miss Beam led the narrator to the garden.
Miss Beam led the narrator to the school garden
There she introduced him to a young girl. She had her eyes covered with a bandage as it was her blind day.
A young girl with her eyes covered with a bandage
Miss Beam left the place so that the narrator and the girl could talk.
The narrator started the conversation and asked the girl whether she would peep during the blind day? The girl said 'no'. She said it would be cheating if she tried to peep. She also spoke about how she felt about these days. As Miss Beam said in the previous paragraph, the blind day had taught her the difficulties of the blind people.
She realised that it was quite terrible to be blind. Since she couldn't see anything, she was always in fear of getting hit by something. She was quite glad to sit down because she knew she was unlikely to run into a pole or some careless people. She felt safe when she was not moving.
Then the narrator asked her about the helpers to which she would be responding in the next paragraph.
These paragraphs are essential because we can learn more about the narrator and as well as the students' mentality. We get to know that the narrator is a man.
It is also possible to assume that the narrator was a journalist or a writer, and he was at the school to write an article about its unique system. We can easily consider this because E. V. Lucas himself was a writer and an editor in a magazine.
The girl, on the other hand, can be seen as a representative of the student community. She voices out the concerns and experiences of the students.
Meanings of the difficult words:
Sl. No. | Words | Meanings |
1 | Gentleman | A polite or formal way of referring to a man |
2 | Awful | Very bad; unpleasant |
3 | Moment | A very brief period of time |
4 | Hit by | Bang or smash into something |
5 | Relief | Comfort |
6 | Helpers | People who help or assist someone else |
7 | Kind | Good-natured; good-hearted |
Reference:
National Council of Educational Research and Training (2006). Honeysuckle. A Different Kind of School - E. V. Lucas (pp. 56-62). Published at the Publication Division by the Secretary, National Council of Educational Research and Training, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi.
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